


stay a little longer

by free_kicks7



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:04:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4881379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/free_kicks7/pseuds/free_kicks7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>somewhat AU, begins during the 2012 Olympics.  based on the song "stay a little longer" by brothers osborne</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic, constructive criticism much appreciated! hope you enjoy

_Something like a strong wind is coming over me,_

_It’s got a hold of me._

_Thinking and doing things I shouldn’t be,_

_I really shouldn’t be._

 

They met at the 2012 Olympics. 

 

Well, not really met, Kelley supposed.  But it was the first time they actually spoke, had conversations that extended further than a casual “hey, how are you?” in the halls or Hope barking orders at a borderline embarrassingly inexperienced Kelley on the backline.  

 

2012 marked the first time they shared a room and the beginning of their real relationship.  It gradually grew, gradually became something beautiful, something sacred almost, sacred to the point that Hope, the notoriously emotionless, I’m-too-good-to-feel-anything Hope Solo, sought Kelley O’Hara of all people out when she had problems with Jerramy, when she felt she didn’t play up to her (impossible) standards, or even when she just needed someone to talk to.  

 

It was funny really.  Not in a laugh out loud way, but in a way that makes a person look twice at something and realize that it had been so obvious, it’s a wonder they didn’t see it before.  How could silent, stoic Hope ever get along with Kelley, a ball of energy, blazing her way through life with unrestrained optimism?  The real question was how could they not?  Kelley was the Yang to Hope’s Yin: the light to her dark, the up to her down, the warmth to her cold, the list goes on.  They complemented each other, they made sense, and that was that.  Kelley was Kelley, Hope was Hope, together they were Hope and Kelley, and it just worked.  

 

Until it didn’t.  

 

Everything changed on August 9th, 2012.  They finally beat Japan, finally gained some retribution, some reparation for the heartache that had been the World Cup Final the summer before.  Naturally, they celebrated as a team, harder than Kelley had ever celebrated before (mind you, she did go to Stanford, which, as fun a school as it may be, isn’t on the level of, say, Arizona State or even USC).  She was elated, ecstatic, and, above all, drunk beyond belief.  

 

It wasn’t the first time they drank together, but it was the first time they drank _together_.  Stumbling back to their room on that rainy night, something changed.  It wasn’t as if Kelley hadn’t noticed it before, the lingering touches, the way her eyes would always find hers in a crowded room, the fact that once or twice (well, maybe three or four, even five times but who’s counting) over the tournament they had fallen asleep together and woken up with entangled limbs and soft smiles.  No, Kelley wasn’t dumb (she did indeed go to Stanford, as she’ll smugly point out given the chance).  She had noticed before; it was just a lot more tangible now.  It was like she could feel their connection as they tottered to their room, belting the national anthem off key, arms draped around each other as they pressed the button in the elevator to go to the seventh floor.  Her mind fuzzy, thoughts blurred, Kelley began to think.  

 

Began to really think.  Began to question her relationship with the keeper.  Began to wonder if the feeling in the pit of her stomach (she _would_ describe it as butterflies, but it’s more intense, maybe bats?  Birds?  On the subject of patriotism, eagles?) she got when she saw Hope maybe stemmed from something non-platonic.  So, she did what any rational, clear-thinking, unbelievably drunk person would do.  

 

She stopped thinking.  

 

She kissed Hope.   

 

Yes, Hope as in Hope Solo.  Hope as in straight-as-an-arrow, in a committed relationship with a professional football player, all around terrifying human being Hope fucking Solo.  Kelley kissed the one and only Hope Solo.  

 

The funny thing is, Hope kissed her back.  

 

The funnier thing is, there was absolutely no hesitation.  It wasn’t like one of those moments in a movie where the girl is so caught off guard by a kiss she stops for a moment before finally giving in and kissing back— all being well and everything being perfect and the sun shining or the stars glowing or the rain pounding.  

 

No.  It was more than that.  It was real, it was special, it wasn’t ruled by cliché, it was one of those moments that a person looks back on at the end of their life and realizes that it defined them.  Most importantly, it was theirs.  

 

So, Kelley’s back against the wall, they kissed.  And kissed.  And kissed.  Save Hope, Kelley, and the elevator, everything else stopped existing.  

 

And then the elevator dinged.  The door opened.  They stepped out.  

 

“Kelley, you just, uh, kissed me,” Hope said, a touch nervously.  

 

“My bad, won’t happen again, so, so, so sorry,” Kelley hiccupped in response.  

 

“I didn’t ask you to apologize.”

 

“You didn’t ask me to kiss you again either.” 

 

“Do I have to ask, Kels?”

 

“It would be nice.” 

 

“Fine.  Kelley, kiss me.”

 

“That’s not asking, I want a please.” 

 

Pleases, boyfriends, everything forgotten, Hope put her hands on Kelley’s hips, guided her to their room, fumbled with the key a bit, and, after struggling to get inside, pressed Kelley to the door and pressed her lips to Kelley’s.  

 

The defender moaned into the kiss, and Hope knew with more certainty than she had ever known anything before that she had to hear that sound again.  

 

So she broke the kiss and began trailing her lips down her jawline, onto her neck, finally onto the exposed skin of her chest, counting freckles as she went.  

 

That wasn’t enough for Hope.  She needed more.  Much more.  So she took the hem of Kelley’s shirt and guided it over her head, letting her lips trail farther down the defender’s body as she unclasped her bra.  Her hands were slipping lower onto Kelley’s hips, when, out of nowhere, Kelley flipped their positions and almost frantically tore Hope’s shirt off.  

 

Shocked by this sudden move and the cool feeling of Kelley’s lips on her neck, Hope regained enough composure to gasp, “Bed. Now.”  

 

Kelley could do nothing but oblige.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> awkward morning afters galore, etc.

_Give it one more call,_

_It’s one more “whatcha doing right now?”_

_It’s one more trip to my side of town and you walk right in,_

_One more here we go again._

 

Kelley woke up the next morning with a pounding headache.

 

“Oh my god,” she groaned, rolling over in bed.  

 

Then she saw it, saw her.  

 

Hope Solo was in the wrong bed.  Her bed.  Kelley’s bed.  The events of last night all came rushing back, hitting her like a ton of bricks, or, more realistically, like a brick house.    

 

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Kelley whispered again, simultaneously trying to not freak out and to not wake up the slumbering goalkeeper next to her.  

 

It didn’t work.  Hope began to stir, and with every passing breath, the defender could feel her heart pounding faster and faster.  

 

“Holy _shit_ ,” Hope moaned, splaying her arms and legs across the bed, inadvertently hitting Kelley’s face in the process.  Kelley winced.  

 

“Wait, what the fuck?” the goalkeeper said, shooting up out of bed, still one hundred percent naked.  “O’Hara, what the actual fuck?”

 

For the first time in quite possibly her entire life, Kelley was at a complete loss for words. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and stammered, “I, um, we, uh, last night, alcohol, and, oh my god we slept together.” 

 

Hope stood in front of Kelley, mouth gaping, seemingly unaware that she remained completely exposed.  

 

“This… This can’t… This couldn’t have… I can’t… Kelley, Jerramy and I…” Hope spluttered.

 

The defender looked down with an undeniable hint of dejection flashing across her features.  “You don’t think I know that Hope?” 

 

“It has to be a one time thing.  We’re not going to talk about this.  This can’t happen ever again,” Hope responded, agitatedly pacing around the room. 

 

“Okay, okay that’s fine, I get it, whatever.  Now, please can you get dressed?  And you might want to do something about the… Well, there’s some things on your neck that you might want to maybe deal with?” 

 

Hope grabbed the nearest shirt (which happened to be Kelley’s and _maybe_ didn’t quite fit her properly) and threw it on.  She walked over to the mirror, saw the different shades of purple and blue on her neck, and whipped around to face the defender.

 

“O’Hara, what were you thinking?  What about absolutely destroying my neck was necessary?  Could you be a bigger dumbass?”  Hope hissed at Kelley.

 

“Okay calm down and grab a scarf.  It’s not the end of the world.  They’ll fade before Jerramy sees them.  I mean they’ll probably fade.  No promises.”

 

Hope flicked Kelley off and then realized she hadn’t checked her phone in the past twelve or so hours.  Upon unlocking it, she saw she had fourteen missed texts and five missed calls, all from Jerramy: 

“Babe where are you, thought we were celebrating together?”

“Baby seriously, where’s my gold medalist?”

“K, Hope, actually where are you?  You were supposed to stay with me tonight.” 

 

“Shit.  Shit.  _Shit_.  I have to go find him.”

 

“Yeah.  Go.” 

 

 

 

Hope came back two hours later to an empty room.  

 

She went outside and saw Christen, one of their alternates and Kelley’s teammate at Stanford.

 

“Hey, Press, have you seen Kelley?  All her stuff’s out of our room.”

 

“Oh yeah, you just missed her.  She left to catch her flight back Atlanta.”  

 

Hope wasn’t quite sure why, but she felt her heart sink a little bit upon hearing her roommate was already gone.  “Alright, thanks.”  

 

“No worries Hope!  And great tournament, you killed it!” 

 

The goalkeeper could only smile weakly in response.  “Thanks, Press.” 

 

 

 

It had been two months since Kelley had heard from Hope, absolute radio silence from the keeper.  She’d be lying if she said it didn’t hurt a bit; after all, they had become quite close at the Olympics.  The defender told herself it was for the best.  Hope was with Jerramy, and this gave her time to get over whatever feelings she _may_ have had for her old roommate.  

 

Anyway, she was starting a new life now, having just moved to New Jersey to join Sky Blue FC.  The WPS had folded at the beginning of the summer and with it her job, so she packed her bags in hopes that a new league would begin soon.   

 

As she was settling on the coach for a night of Parks and Rec reruns, Kelley felt her phone buzz.  She looked at the screen.  It was a message from Hope.

 

“hey, i’m in NJ, wanna meet up?” 

 

Kelley didn’t know what to say, so she said the first thing that came to mind. 

 

“of course, come to my place?” 

 

“yeah, see you in 10.” 

 

Fourteen minutes later (not that Kelley had been watching the clock, no seriously she didn’t even care that Hope was four minutes late), her doorbell rang.  

 

Kelley took a moment to collect her breath before going to open the door.

 

“Hey, O’Hara.  It’s been a while.” 

 

“Hi, Hope.”  

 

They were at that awkward stage where they weren’t quite sure whether it was appropriate to hug: A handshake felt too formal, but it felt like a hug would cross an unspoken boundary between the two.  

 

“Well, are you going to let me in, or are we going to stand in your doorframe all night?” 

 

Kelley stepped aside, and Hope strode into her apartment.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, it ends a bit abruptly! i'm still working on improving my writing, so constructive criticism is more than welcome! thank you for reading :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hope's backkkkk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some smut... not much but you have been warned. and my god even a little bit of smut is hard to write. also the timeline is wrong so

_One more drink leads to another,_

_You slide up close to me._

_Tearing t-shirts off each other,_

_Your hands all over me._

 

Hope plopped down on her couch as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Well, aren’t you going to show me that southern hospitality and offer me a drink, O’Hara?”

 

The defender hesitated for a moment.  “I mean, yeah, I guess, do you want water, beer, wine?”

 

“I’ll start with wine, thanks.”   

 

Kelley couldn’t believe how easily this was all coming back to her, how easy it was for things to feel so _normal_ with Hope again.  It was like she had never left, almost like things, unspeakable things they agreed not to speak of, had never happened. 

 

Almost.

 

Almost like unspeakable things hadn’t happened.  But they had, and the electricity between her and Hope hadn’t dissipated at all.  If anything, the prolonged absence served to strengthen it, like the draw between two magnets that have been held just too far apart for just too long. 

 

It was there for Kelley, absolutely without a doubt. However, whether or not Hope felt it too was still up in the air.

 

It was naturally _imperative_ for Kelley to find out.

 

Kelley slid the glass of wine to Hope, then reached to pour one for herself.

 

“So… How… How have you been?” the defender asked shyly (if anything Kelley O’Hara does can be considered shy).

 

“I’ve been good.  We, me and… well, we got in another fight, you know,” Hope responded, finishing her first glass of wine and immediately pouring another. 

 

Kelley laughed almost bitterly in response.  “Yeah.  I figured something was up.  Do you, want to, I don’t know, talk about it?”

 

Hope swirled the remainder of her wine before downing it, setting the empty glass down with a satisfied thump.  “Not particularly.  I wouldn’t say that I came here to talk.” 

 

“Why’d you come then?”

“Got anything stronger?  We can talk about not talking over a few drinks.” 

 

Kelley went to search through her admittedly bare cabinets, finally procuring a god knows how old bottle of vodka, realistically a remnant of her college days (long live, go Stanford).  Fortuitously, she also found two relatively dusty shot glasses (nice going O’Hara, she thought, giving herself a mental pat on the back).

 

“Yeah, I’m not sure how old or how good this thing is, but it’s all we got.”

 

Hope got up and walked to stand by Kelley at the counter. “This’ll do.  How about a toast.” 

 

“A toast?  What are we toasting?”

 

“A toast to friendship, to more than friendship, to asshole boyfriends.” Hope poured two shots.

 

“To friendship,” Kelley toasted at the same time that Hope said, “To more than friendship.” 

 

They downed the liquor, throats searing with the bitter taste of the alcohol.

 

Hope winced.  “How about another, O’Hara? Or are you afraid that you can’t outdrink a senior citizen like me?” 

 

Always one for a challenge, Kelley poured another.  They drank. 

 

Hope poured another.  They drank.  

 

By this time, Kelley was beginning to feel pleasantly fuzzy. Somehow, she’d ended up on the couch by Hope. She’d be lying if she said she knew how she got there. 

 

Hope swallowed back a hiccup and put a hand on the defender’s knee. “Here’s one more. Let’s drink– to us.”

 

“To us!”  Kelley exclaimed, still acutely aware of the hand on her knee as it seemed to move higher.

 

“So, Hope, are we going to talk about not talking?” 

 

The hand on her knee was most definitely moving higher, and Kelley subconsciously uncrossed her legs, as if granting unspoken permission.

 

“Well, talking too much about it would most definitely ruin the fun. So, no, we’re not going to talk about it.”

 

“What are we going to do then?”  The hand on her knee had moved even higher now, hovering dangerously close to where Kelley wanted, no, needed, it most. 

 

Hope didn’t answer.  Instead, she took the defender’s face in both of her hands and connected their lips.

 

It was like something went off in Kelley, a switch flicked, a light turned on.  She felt more alive than she had since, well, since last time. 

 

But it wasn’t the time to think about the past.  It was only them, in the moment. 

 

Hope pulled Kelley so that she was straddling her waist. Kelley began to rock her hips back and forth on top of the keeper, creating enough pressure to elicit a low moan.

 

Hope began to slide her hands down, playing with the waistband of Kelley’s pants. 

 

“Hope, don’t play games with me,” Kelley moaned into the older woman’s ear.

 

Hope smiled deviously, fingernails dragging over the defender’s stomach. “O’Hara, you need to work a little harder.  Show me you want me.”

 

Eyes dark with desire, Kelley decided it was time to take control, so she grabbed Hope’s hand and slid it into her underwear. 

 

“I need it Hope.  Please.”

 

What else could Hope do but give in?

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Kelley woke up the next morning, she wasn’t surprised to find that Hope was gone.

 

Even in her drunken euphoria, a part of her knew that her and the older woman would only last the night. 

 

Kelley was surprised, however, that for four weeks after they, well, after they did _stuff_ again, she didn’t hear from Hope.

 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a quick, “hey, hope your days going well!”

 

That pissed her off. 

 

But then, after a full four weeks, she got a text from Hope.

“hey, I’m in town, wanna meet up?”

 

So they met up. 

 

Another couple weeks went by (Kelley had stopped counting. Sooooo not worth it.)

 

Then another text.

 

“hey, can I come over?”

 

So Hope came over. 

 

The cycle repeated itself for a few months: Kelley wouldn’t hear from her for a couple weeks, then out of the blue she’d get a text and they’d meet up, and so on. 

 

But then it stopped.  Kelley didn’t know why, until she saw the instagram. 

 

“Luckiest girl in the world, can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you!”

 

Hope was getting married.

 

There was nothing she could do about it. 

 

Worse, she was finally beginning to come to terms with something she had been so desperately trying to fight.

 

She was, without a doubt, unbelievably, possibly irrevocably, in love with Hope Solo.


End file.
